New Research Investigates Attitudes and Practices in Changed Travel Landscape

With the worldwide recession having fundamentally altered the business travel landscape, companies are adapting to a new operating environment. There is an opportunity to measure how prepared they are with adjustments made during the recession and in the face of travel demand coming back. American Express Business Travel has announced today the availability of an interactive scorecard to measure travel program effectiveness. Research surveying attitudes and actions companies took to scale-back travel and plan for the future was conducted in tandem with the initiative and the findings released in a new eXpert insights report: Managing Travel in the New Normal.

"Companies are struggling to reorient themselves after arriving at the crossroads where aggressive cost-cutting and long-term company performance intersect," said Charles Petruccelli, president, American Express Global Travel Services. "As the broader economy shows signs of stability, companies are realizing the importance of measuring the impact of changed travel patterns on both sales and growth opportunities. Companies need to ask themselves: did we cut travel in the right places and did we make the proper investments to support smart travel when recovery begins?"

Survey Says

Most respondents to the Managing Travel in the New Normal survey indicated they believe travel demand will come back in 2010, albeit not to pre-recession levels any time soon. Produced by American Express Business Travel's eXpert insights research team, the report is the first formal survey of its kind to examine how corporations have adapted their travel programs in response to the global recession and if their programs are optimized for when travel does pick-up. The survey analysis provides insight into a variety of areas, including the traveler-centric future of managed travel, a move toward mandating policy and supplier compliance, a willingness of companies to make technology investments to support both travel and alternatives to travel, and taking actions to centralize meetings as the next area for procurement-led savings.

"In creating the scorecard, we first felt it important to objectively survey executives and managed travel professionals to find out what measures they took to readjust travel spending behaviors during the recession and if it would prepare them for the future," said Lisa Durocher, senior vice president, Global Marketing, American Express Business Travel. "We then designed this interactive platform to help companies measure their own actions, benchmark their programs, and appropriately address their business travel strategy with real-time advice from our experts."

Travel Program Preparedness Scorecard

Anyone responsible for oversight or management of travel can use this scorecard available atwww.americanexpress.com/newnormalquiz. A series of questions are asked related to travel, including demand management strategies, compliance practices, technology implementation, and data integration. Throughout the experience, users are provided tangible advice and tips from American Express consultants, strategic program managers, and business travel executives. Several methods for determining results, including a real-time benchmarking feature based on the eXpert insights survey data responses, inform users how they fare in comparison to others who answered similar questions in the survey. At the end, users are categorized according to a three-level scale:

-- Strategic Leader - leading the pack in tackling the demands placed on travel buyers as a result of the new normal in business travel

-- Demand Manager - effectively pulling the levers of travel and demand management and implementing solutions that address the new normal

-- Change Agent - keen awareness of pressures exerted on business travel as a result of the new normal and working to apply best practices to address them

Following are detailed explanations of the key trends examined in Managing Travel in the New Normal survey:

Traveler Centricity Means Mobile

Survey respondents anecdotally reported that their travelers increasingly desire to leave their laptops behind and these companies have also seen demand for mobile services increase. Respondents also suggested personal mobile services are seen as a potential threat to a traditional managed travel environment.

When respondents were asked specifically about which tools and services their companies make available to their travelers, 37 percent said they leverage technology and mobile services to make life on the road easier, more than 17 percent are researching such tools, while 26 percent said it is not a priority for their organization.

"When a company takes no action in relation to providing mobile services to travelers, they need to consider impacts of employees striking out on their own to access what they need on the road," continued Durocher. "This has the potential of threatening compliance to policies and suppliers, similar to when travelers went on any website to book travel before managed programs offered corporate booking tools that help ensure company policies, procedures, and preferred suppliers are used by employees."

Technology Investments Drive Efficiency

-- Travel Alternatives Make a Connection

Survey results showed that more than 40 percent of C-level executives are willing to spend on new virtual meetings technologies. This finding indicates that top decision-makers likely view the concept of virtual travel as a beneficial investment and supports the idea that companies are transitioning from targeting cost reductions to a strategy built around more thoughtful spending to connect employees.

-- 74 percent said their companies use or plan to use audio-conferencing as an alternative to travel.

-- 15 percent of respondents are currently researching broadband collaboration options.

-- 10 percent have no alternative technology strategy to replace in-person meetings.

-- Automating Processes is Key to Achieving ROI Goals

Companies increasingly are looking to make the switch from manual expense processes to online expense automation tools. Especially now that travel managers are increasingly being asked track every dollar of each trip taken and to justify the return on investment in trips.

-- 64 percent of respondents with $1 million to $3 million in annual air spend and 70 percent of respondents from large companies with annual air spend of $50 million plus have invested in an expense management solution.

-- More than 86 percent of all respondents whose companies invested in an automated expense reporting solution link it to a corporate card data feed. These linkages help to avoid human error or fraud, increase efficiency, and drive policy compliance.

Durocher added, "A key finding the survey revealed is that even with travel expense under the microscope, travel managers expressed a willingness to spend on technology. Responses highlighted how critical technology is to help companies strike a balance in an effective spend management approach that appropriately supports, rather than hinders, sales and growth."

Mandates Are The 'New Normal"

As the collective public continues to scrutinize travel expenses, companies across the board are cracking down on corporate travel policy. For most companies today, a first-time failure to comply with policy is generally met by a warning to the individual and/or a non-compliance report provided to a supervisor. The survey also found that for individuals who repeatedly fail to comply, nearly 37 percent of companies quickly escalate their response to a non-reimbursement situation to combat policy breaks.

-- Only 10 percent of travel management departments that report to procurement or finance will allow a traveler's first compliance failure to go without a warning or notice of some kind.

-- More than 26 percent of companies with travel management reporting to HR or administrative offices allow a first offense to go unmanaged.

Meetings Management a Must

Less than 30 percent of respondents said their companies currently have a formalized and enforced meetings policy. An additional 11 percent have a meetings policy but do not enforce it, and more than one-quarter of responding companies had no meetings policy implemented. The largest percentage of survey respondents (36%) indicated that meeting planning processes were subject to the corporate travel policy, rather than a specific meetings policy.

The study also showed that a major factor in the maturity of meetings management practices within an organization was the sheer size of the travel management program. Corporate travel programs with an air volume of $10 million to $50 million ranked highest among survey respondents (41%) for managing meetings through a centralized department.

About Managing Travel in the New Normal Survey

Conducted in January by eXpert insights, the research practice of American Express Business Travel Global Advisory Services, and administered by Promedia.travel, the survey polled 169 respondents across more than 30 industries, who are directly involved in managing corporate travel policies and budgets. Participating firms maintained offices in North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, Central/South America and/or Africa/Middle East. In terms of travel program coverage, 43.8 percent of companies cited global programs, while 26.6 percent managed domestic travel and 22.5 percent had multi-national programs. The survey also broke out sub-sets to identify practices for companies whose travel management reported into finance and procurement and those who reported into human resources or other functions. Interviews were conducted with a cross-section of respondents to delve more deeply into individual and industry perspectives surrounding this new normal.

About American Express Business Travel

American Express Business Travel (www.americanexpress.com/businesstravel), a division of American Express Company, is committed to helping its clients maximize the return on their travel investment through increased cost savings, world-class customer service and greater spending control. With clients ranging from small businesses to multinational corporations, American Express Business Travel provides a combination of industry-leading technology, travel management consulting, strategic sourcing and supplier negotiation support, alongside global customer service available online and offline.

The Company also provides a dynamic online community (www.businesstravelconneXion.com) harnessing the collective intelligence of those in the business travel industry offering a variety of perspectives, best practices, current research and industry news.